ASUS officially launches the Microsoft-equipped flavor of its popular ultra-portable

While enthusiasts have been loading Windows XP onto ASUS' ultra-portable Eee PC of their own regard since its launch, those who wanted to avoid the worry of customizing the Microsoft OS -- or just wanted the familiar "Windows Key" instead of the "Home Key" were left waiting for the official launch.

ASUS announced late on Wednesday the release of the Eee with a pre-loaded Windows XP operating system. Keeping the focus on the original philosophy of "Easy to learn, work, and play" the Eee-XP comes preloaded with a number of Windows Live products, such as Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, and "Family Safety" -- a parental-controls suite. The entry-level Microsoft Works suite will also be provided, but ASUS has specified that it will not be available in certain regions, likely due to localization restrictions on the software.

Given the issues about the lifespan of the internal SSD raised in an earlier DailyTech blog posting, there is some concern with regards to any new wear-leveling that may be put in place to extend the drive life. Most devices with solid-state storage have used operating systems designed to minimize repeated write-erase cycles, such as Linux or an embedded version of Windows, rather than a full consumer OS.

Guys you are missing the point of the Asus Eee PC, "easy"... If you add a CD/DVD well you are just making a normal notebook with moving parts that can and will brake. No moving parts was one of the big things. If you need to add items from CD do it through a network or external CD/DVD drive do not expect Asus to change their no moving part formula...Plus you will add to the cost of the product if you add items like a CD/DVD drive.

And as a sidebar, the "no moving parts" claim on the Eee isn't quite the truth. It does in fact have one "occasionally moving part" - the fan. It only kicks on if you're doing something fairly processor-intensive, but it is still a "moving part."

I always thought it would be cool to have a thumb drive for each program that one runs on a system. Like a game cartridge for an old video game system. This way it keeps less data on your system, still access in fair speed, data and program would be very security (hard to steal when it's not on a system - by hacking at least), and should not have to fear reloading your OS and lose data (everything would be stored remotely.) By keeping the data off your system, it should keep the speed of your system running as fast (or near to the speed) as the day you first turned in on. The current price of a thumb drive is really the only problem I can think of right now.

I don't actually see anyone asking for a CD/DVD drive, just requests for a clean install disk of XP media (and not the lovely restore images that install evry last bit of outdated trial software that was originally installed). How they would access said media would be through the methods you mentioned, an external drive, over the network, etc...